A few years ago, I was having breakfast with my old roommate. I stumbled across a story in the entertainment section. "Hey, check this out," I said. "James Brown is addicted to painkillers."

"That's oddd," my roommate said. "I'd have thought that would have been his wife."

James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured "Godfather of Soul," whose rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a founder of rap, funk and disco as well, died early Monday, his agent said. He was 73.

Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music. Longtime friend Charles Bobbit was by his side, he said.

Copsidas said the cause of death was uncertain. "We really don't know at this point what he died of," he said.

Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. At least one generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him. His rapid-footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson among others. Songs such as David Bowie's "Fame," Prince's "Kiss," George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" and Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song" were clearly based on Brown's rhythms and vocal style.

If Brown's claim to the invention of soul can be challenged by fans of Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, then his rights to the genres of rap, disco and funk are beyond question. He was to rhythm and dance music what Dylan was to lyrics: the unchallenged popular innovator.

"James presented obviously the best grooves," rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy once told The Associated Press. "To this day, there has been no one near as funky. No one's coming even close."

His hit singles include such classics as "Out of Sight,""(Get Up I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine,""I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Say It Loud — I'm Black and I'm Proud," a landmark 1968 statement of racial pride.

"I clearly remember we were calling ourselves colored, and after the song, we were calling ourselves black," Brown said in a 2003 Associated Press interview. "The song showed even people to that day that lyrics and music and a song can change society."

He won a Grammy award for lifetime achievement in 1992, as well as Grammys in 1965 for "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (best R&B recording) and for "Living In America" in 1987 (best R&B vocal performance, male.) He was one of the initial artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, along with Presley, Chuck Berry and other founding fathers.

He triumphed despite an often unhappy personal life. Brown, who lived in Beech Island near the Georgia line, spent more than two years in a South Carolina prison for aggravated assault and failing to stop for a police officer. After his release on in 1991, Brown said he wanted to "try to straighten out" rock music.

From the 1950s, when Brown had his first R&B hit, "Please, Please, Please" in 1956, through the mid-1970s, Brown went on a frenzy of cross-country tours, concerts and new songs. He earned the nickname "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business" and often tried to prove it to his fans, said Jay Ross, his lawyer of 15 years.

Brown would routinely lose two or three pounds each time he performed and kept his furious concert schedule in his later years even as he fought prostate cancer, Ross said.

"He'd always give it his all to give his fans the type of show they expected," he said.

With his tight pants, shimmering feet, eye makeup and outrageous hair, Brown set the stage for younger stars such as Michael Jackson and Prince.

In 1986, he was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And rap stars of recent years overwhelmingly have borrowed his lyrics with a digital technique called sampling.

Brown's work has been replayed by the Fat Boys, Ice-T, Public Enemy and a host of other rappers. "The music out there is only as good as my last record," Brown joked in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone magazine.

"Disco is James Brown, hip-hop is James Brown, rap is James Brown; you know what I'm saying? You hear all the rappers, 90 percent of their music is me," he told the AP in 2003.

Born in poverty in Barnwell, S.C., in 1933, he was abandoned as a 4-year-old to the care of relatives and friends and grew up on the streets of Augusta, Ga., in an "ill-repute area," as he once called it. There he learned to wheel and deal.

"I wanted to be somebody," Brown said.

By the eighth grade in 1949, Brown had served 3 1/2 years in Alto Reform School near Toccoa, Ga., for breaking into cars.

While there, he met Bobby Byrd, whose family took Brown into their home. Byrd also took Brown into his group, the Gospel Starlighters. Soon they changed their name to the Famous Flames and their style to hard R&B.

In January 1956, King Records of Cincinnati signed the group, and four months later "Please, Please, Please" was in the R&B Top Ten.

Pete Allman, a radio personality in Las Vegas who had been friends with Brown for 15 years, credited Brown with jump-starting his career and motivating him personally and professionally.

"He was a very positive person. There was no question he was the hardest working man in show business," Allman said. "I remember Mr. Brown as someone who always motivated me, got me reading the Bible."

While most of Brown's life was glitz and glitter — he was the singing preacher in 1980's "The Blues Brothers" — he was plagued with charges of abusing drugs and alcohol and of hitting his third wife, Adrienne.

In September 1988, Brown, high on PCP and carrying a shotgun, entered an insurance seminar next to his Augusta office. Police said he asked seminar participants if they were using his private restroom.

Police chased Brown for a half-hour from Augusta into South Carolina and back to Georgia. The chase ended when police shot out the tires of his truck.

Brown received a six-year prison sentence. He spent 15 months in a South Carolina prison and 10 months in a work release program before being paroled in February 1991. In 2003, the South Carolina parole board granted him a pardon for his crimes in that state.

Soon after his release, Brown was on stage again with an audience that included millions of cable television viewers nationwide who watched the three-hour, pay-per-view concert at Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles.

Adrienne Brown died in 1996 in Los Angeles at age 47. She took PCP and several prescription drugs while she had a bad heart and was weak from cosmetic surgery two days earlier, the coroner said.

More recently, he married his fourth wife, Tomi Raye Hynie, one of his backup singers. The couple had a son, James Jr.

Two years later, Brown spent a week in a private Columbia hospital, recovering from what his agent said was dependency on painkillers. Brown's attorney, Albert "Buddy" Dallas, said the singer was exhausted from six years of road shows.

Brown was performing to the end, and giving back to his community.

Three days before his death, he joined volunteers at his annual toy giveaway in Augusta, and he planned to perform on New Year's Eve at B.B. King Blues Club in New York.

"He was dramatic to the end — dying on Christmas Day," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a friend of Brown's since 1955. "Almost a dramatic, poetic moment. He'll be all over the news all over the world today. He would have it no other way."

Christmas with commissioner brian lang.

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I'm on the road. Right

I'm on the road. Right now i'm at george bush airport in houston. My friend who drove me to seatac told me it was named after shub.

I've never been to texas

I've never been to texas before. Lot of hot chicks, but i keep smelling something awful. A nice old lady just said she was married 48 years.

The performance artist known as

The performance artist known as __ has died again at the age of 37.

Viv la revolution!

I love this band's name.

I just saw Jonathan Richman. After his second song, my friend Lila turned to me and said, "Everything is going to be all right." It was a wonderful show.

It seems like a good career, you know? I'd like to play guitar and sing my words, with a small backing band. I have an idea who would be my Tommy Larkin. And I think I have another guitarist, too.

Wow, groove on this awesome camera phone photo of Jonathan Richman. It accurately captures my perception, after three drinks and a vicodin.

DIABETICS IN THE NEWS

Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet died today at the age of 91.

THE OTHER ME ON MYSPACE



On my super-secret private home email account, I started getting Myspace emails for one Cheryl. As far as impersonations go, this is pretty benign. But interesting.

Looking over her profile, Cheryl appears to be a member of a clique of teenagers from Puyallup, Washington who like to joke on Myspace that they're from Australia. Or maybe they're all from Australia, and and they're stuck in Puyallup for the nonce.

Cheryl has this to say about herself:

I'm not like most other girls.
I have dreams, visions, goals.
My morals are higher than high in the value of my life.
My name is Cheryl.
I am originally from Australia.
I lived in Perth, The Gold Coast, Melbourne, and many other areas around that "oh-so-small" continent. ;)
I moved to Puyallup this November,
I currently attend Rogers High School.
I start school this Monday.
But I might move back to Australia this week if plans change.
Who knows.
I'm not prone to cliques.
I'd rather be friends with everyone,
Rather than be hated, or hate, because he, she, or I am someone.
I am a model.
I do not have a label.
Please do not label me.
My modelling career is off to a good start,
And I'm ready to conquer the world.
Besides.
You're wasting your time if you don't give it a try.

I sent Cheryl an email letting her know our wires have crossed. Then I went ahead and send "friend requests" to all of her friends, figuring if Cheryl wants to use my email address, then I should be able to pillage from her friend count. Amusingly, [[ALL I WANT 4 CHRISTMAS IS... to be loved bii u! approved me immediately -- like, within fifteen seconds.

I suppose email addresses get confused all the time, so this isn't like some kind of cosmic identity coincidence. But I find the cross more interesting than with Toronto Mayor David Miller, for example, or the many Dave Millers who work in craft services in the film industry. I can only agree with a few of the statements by Cheryl about herself (I, too am a model, and I share the optimism), but really can't get behind the pink colored font she used (I don't know how to change font color in html). But we're both the kind of people who use very specific syringe references in an email addresses. Strange. It's amazing the kind of connections you find, in the strangest ways. I always suspected my life might oddly intersect with a group of teenage girls someday. It's a little Twin Peaks-esque. I'm realieved I'm not a drug dealer in this situation.